


an equal and opposite reaction

by MFLuder



Category: Marvel (House of M), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - House of M, Angst, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Minor Wanda Maximoff/Vision, POV Wanda Maximoff, References to Marvel Ultimates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:45:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MFLuder/pseuds/MFLuder
Summary: Wanda is breaking.





	an equal and opposite reaction

**Author's Note:**

> INFINITY WAR SPOILERS.

_And all this energy…  
the energy of thousands of mutants…  
It didn’t all just disappear.  
I’m asking—  
—Where did it go?_  
-House of M

Wanda is breaking, but it’s not because of the effort to try to destroy a stone that’s been there since the start of this universe. It’s not even because she’s killing her heart right along with Vision, his words echoing to her: _it shouldn’t have to be you. But it is._

Instead, it’s because of the power coursing through her; a valve has opened up inside her and when Thanos charges at her, it is so easy to keep him at bay. Her body screams in anguish, but still the power comes, power to rival the stone, to damage it. In that moment, Wanda is laid bare to everything; in trying to break one stone she can feel them all. 

Universes of possibility open to her. She sees a reality where she hasn’t discovered her powers and Pietro is Peter with long hair and an American accent. Another flash shows a universe where Wanda is killed by Ultron, where Pietro is abused by their father and helps to defeat him. Where they had a sexual relationship as well. She sees a half sister, sometimes wielding great powers, sometimes caged, always with green hair, at least once with child. Sometimes Wanda has children; sometimes they are gone and she feels the ache of their loss in every Wanda across the vast cosmos of reality.

She sees many more, her eyes dark to Thanos, even to Vision, as they dart across a number of realities, some where she got her powers from the stone like this one, some where she’s a witch, others where her power is innate, sometimes a mutation, sometimes she’s just another one of many. Hex magic, chaos magic. In some worlds she has no powers, sometimes they’re taken from her.

And in one, she gives them up.

The stone is on the verge of collapse, and she sees Vision once more, sorrow reflecting in eyes that should not show emotion but do, the deepest emotion she’s ever felt from anyone beside her brother, her twin, her other half.

It’s not quite enough, though, her power, not in time to end this war, to stop her comrades from getting killed on a battlefield. She doesn’t know where Cap or Widow are, just knows she needs to stop this now, here, so that no one else is left to experience the heartbreak she feels.

Wanda takes a breath and _pulls_ , opens herself to the world of alternate realities, all those lives she can feel, see.

It’s like her mind settles into that other her. The other her with far curlier, nearly jet-black hair, a thick Romanian accent not too removed from her own Sokovian tongue. She feels the tears of her other self, knows they’re reflected on her own body, seemingly a thousand miles and a million realities away. She sees the body of her brother, wearing a strange teal colored costume, feels her other self let loose rage, lashing out at someone – at _Daddy_ , she hears her other self say, betrayal sharp in her mind.

_We’re freaks! Mutants!!_ she hears/says. 

Curious. Not a miracle but a mutant. Maybe that’s all she and Pietro ever were here, too. Not meant to last – an aberration in a way that Steve, Hulk, even Vision are not.

Another tear slips down her face and Wanda no longer can tell the difference between them.

_No more mutants_ , she says in one reality, and in her own she channels all the power she can feel her other self give up. She feels a world burn around her.

The stone shatters.

Wanda shatters with it.

She collapses. It’s done.

She’s hollow, a Vision-shaped hole left. The ache is such that she cannot cry in that moment.

Thanos merely laughs, steps over her. She’s nothing more than a minor annoyance.

Horror overcomes her and she’s screaming out a _NO!_ as loud as her other self whispered before destroying an entire race of people with only the power of her mind but she’s powerless to stop the time stone ensconced within the gauntlet and she’s forced to watch time rewind, powerful enough to see the machinations, but too weak to stop them this time.

Time. Their downfall. What they can’t control, but what Thanos can.

If she thought she broke before, when she watches Thanos rip the stone from Vision’s head, she swears there is nothing of her left. His gray dead metallic body falls to the ground and she sobs.

She cradles him there, ignorant to anything else around them. She knows its over; they lost.

She doesn’t hear so much as feel Thanos’ snap, a memory of power, a connection to the mind stone still coursing through her, but even as she feels the changes, feels the grand extinction, lives flickering out now in this reality, as in the other, as in so many others, she welcomes it. Not for them, but for her.

She holds Vision’s body and welcomes the wisps of ash that come from her body, oblivion a relief.

_No more…_

**Author's Note:**

> Internet cookies for anyone who can name each universe reference I snuck in.
> 
> Follow and chat with me [on tumblr](http://mf-luder-xf.tumblr.com)!


End file.
